okay, so you guys want to know how i treat fire? okay, well here goes nothing:

THE BASICS

fire is awesome. whether it's a candle on a birthday cake or your hometown burning to the ground, you can't help but think of the beauty of fire. it is the great cleanser and the great destroyer. it has both helped and destroyed mankind. in this set of rules, i will cover the latter role of fire.

Fire however, has been notoriously... complicated for use in brikwars. it used to require constant adjusting levels of the flame's heat in fire ratings, along with different colored briks enveloping the incandescence. i can't say these are gone altogether, but i've done what i can to eliminate as much fire management as possible.

THE GOODS

when something is on fire, it takes fire damage. fire damage can only affect flammable objects. this includes (but is not limited to):

*wood
*jet fuel
*minifigs
*food
*high-proof alcohol
*etc.

things that are NOT flamabble are metal, water, stone, and the like. the only way such items could be on fire is if covered in something flammable (like a stone covered in oil, or a tank covered with flesh).

fire damage is calculated in d4s equal to the fire size. fire size (FS) is the size, heat and intensity of a fire all bundled into one easy to use value. EXAMPLE: a fire is burning at a FS of 4. therefore, anything burned by it will take 4d4 (not 44) damage. since FS is calculated with a d4, it is highly variable depending on critical successes and failures. if a die comes up as a 4, then the fire goes up one level. if a 1 is rolled, it goes down a level. things that are on fire are limited to an FS of size + 1 (so a minifig of size one can take a maximum of a size 2 fire). if a fire goes to size 0, then the fire is considered out.

now before you say "BUT HORSEMAN, YOU SAID I WOULDN'T HAVE TO KEEP ROLLING DICE AROUND FOR EVERY FIRE LOL", take this into consideration: don't calculate the fire levels of anything you're not currently worried about the actual damage it's taking. examples of this would be not to find out the fire level of every individual building in a battlefield when there's only one minifig that anyone has concern for. however, if someone wants to know if certain supports have burned through which could cause a structural collapse or somthing along that order, they can request a die roll to see how much fire damage a structure is taking. if you weren't keeping track of something's fire size, just assume it's size + 1.

FIRE SPREAD

the spread of fire is something that can also be difficult for anoraks to deal with. generally, a fire will ignite anything within it's burn radius. a burn radius extends FS" horizontally, 2FS" up, and 1/2FS" down. this means a size 3 fire will light up anything within 3 inches of it's side, 6 inches above it, and 1.5 inches below the fire. when something is ignited, it takes on a current fire size of one below the original flame's level. the same size 3 fire in the previous example would make anything in it's burn radius suddenly have a size 2 fire on their hands.

if something is ignited to a level that exceeds it's maximum fire rating (for example, a minifig is burned by a size 14 fire to have a size 13 fire on it), then the object automatically loses one level of fire per turn until it is brought back down to it's maximum fire size (the minifig in question would take 9 turns to cool down to a size 2 fire, and d4s will take care of the rest).

KEEPING TRACK

okay, so now you have things on your battlefield burning like torches. how are you going to keep track of what things are at what levels? the way i do it is to simply add fire pieces. before you think this is like pips - it's not. fire pieces preform the same FUNCTION as pips, but look completely bad ass instead of just stupid circles. For every item that is on fire, throw one of those lego flames on it. if you run out of lego flames, use fire-colored briks. to keep track of fire level, put the same number of fire pieces as the fire size of the object. a minifig with a size two fire would have two flames spurting off of his body, and a car with a size 5 fire would have 5 fire pieces on top of it.

PYROTECHNICS

fire can come from several sources. this includes flamethrowers, matches, molotov cocktails, sparks, fire mages, and explosions.

explosions will add one level of fire every time an 8 or higher is rolled by the d10s explosions deal in damage. this rule is strictly optional, and i garuntee that you'll forget about it in the battlefield. fire will also result from the explosion of something highly flammable, such as a tank full of gasoline. firebombs, molotov cocktails, and incendiary shells will always add one level of fire upon exploding

matches, lighters, blowtorches and other fire-starters add one level of fire to any object they come in contact with, and are considered one or two handed weapons (depending on what object it is).

FLAMETHROWER: the big one. a flamethrower is a two-handed weapon that fires in a two-finger cone (spread your index and middle fingers apart. everything in this angle is affected). it has a range of 10", and lights everything in it's firing cone up in flames, adding two levels of fire to it. flames can be added by two levels per turn from continuous fire. the flamethrower also comes with a fuel tank behind it, which can be targeted at -3 to skill and has an armor of 3. if a minifig with a flamethrower takes damage, roll a d6. a one means the tank exploded. for whatever reason a fuel tank explodes, it does 1d10 damage and adds a level of fire to the minifig.

COMMON USES FOR FIRE

fire is especially useful for clearing minifigs out of cover. fire spreads very quickly through buildings, trenches, and most types of constructions. When a building is on fire, fire will spread across the building from the ignition point at the same rate that it's burn radius would light things, but it moves this fast every turn. due to this, an entire building can be in flames in only a few turns, and everything inside the building is also on fire.

fire can also light minifigs on fire, providing two helpful situations. situation A is a minifig who is taking damage every turn, which is always a good thing. situation B is a minifig who is on fire, and is running in circles screaming, making that blood-curdling scream that only beings undergoing immolation tend to make. another helpful side effect is that they will ignite everything that comes within a certain range of said minifig, including buildings, teammates, and commanding officers. a stumble die determines quite nicely which direction the minifig will choose to run.

one final use of fire is to finish off trapped minifigs. a bunch of soldiers on a wooden ship for example can be taken out in two ways. ONE: fire cannons at the ship over several turns until the ship sinks. TWO: light a fire on the deck and laugh. minifigs who have no means of escape from the inferno are all the more fun to burn. Remember: if you give a man a fire, you keep him warm for the night. if you light a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life.

POISON

Poison works in more or less the exact same way as fire works, with major key differences. units can only be poisoned by poison tipped weapons, drinking vials of dangerous liquids, and the spines of some creatures. Poison is only counted if it enters a minifig's blood stream, and cannot be transferred from, say a shared drinking glass. other than that, Poison damage is still done in d4s equal to the current poison rating (equal to size+1), and can increase or decrease until the victim is either a) recovered naturally b) healed by a medik or c) dead. corpses will only pass on their toxicity if they enter a minifigs bloodstream, through acts such as cannibalism and necrophilia. Poison also only affects living objects, such as minifigs, dinosaurs, and trees.

Last edited by IVhorseman on Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Interesting... I had a really simple method for calculating fire damage: 1d6-1 for how far the fire spreads that turn, and 1d6+2 for damage... Although, I must say, I like your method better. I also need d4s... Also, what about fire with force behind it? Say a meteor is sent flying through a forest: It would move, setting fires behind it. Would you apply those rules to the small fires, or have something about the force of the meteor?

huh? i'm not entirely sure how this is different from a minifig on fire running through some soldiers. basically, everything within (firesize) inches of the meteor would be ignited.

and i like using d4s for two reasons: first of all, high chance of critical rolls, which is important for fire. the other reason is the shape: when the greeks first came up with a concept of atoms, they believed the atom for fire to look like a three-sided pyramid, which is the same shape as a d4. interesting, no?

EDIT: wow, i left out an important sub-rule: keeping track of fire level. i'll put it here until i plop it into the rules.

EDIT EDIT: there, i put it in the rules, under the heading Keeing Track

Last edited by IVhorseman on Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hmm. Good but complex. You'll have to throw a lot of dices and try to remember all the things (and you were complaining when there was something rather small to remember ). Also you empty your fire storage very quickly, even if you use fire-colored bricks. That's very complex, I tell you. I have just used 1d4 for burning damage until it's extinguished.

Maybe I should get more flames and try these rules. When you have everything remembered and enough flames, these could be good. But it involves so much dice-rolling, so I dunno.

In BW2001 we used colored bricks for the fire, and the fire level was the number of different colors. If we had a lot of yellow bricks handy, for instance, then yellow was fire level one. If something was burning at fire level two, we added some red bricks in at that spot, and so forth. It worked pretty well.

i don't think i stressed it enough in the rules i made on what to remember <_<

DO NOT TRY TO KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING ON FIRE

i cannot stress enough how important it is to remember not to remember things. the only thing you have to remember is whether or not something is on fire at all. that is IT. you should rarely have to roll any dice to see how on fire something is. the ONLY time you should ever have to roll dice is if a minifig is on fire, or if some vitally important structure is on fire and needs to keep standing for a few more turns.

if you ever completely disregard how on fire something is (which you should always do), assume that it is burning at it's maximum fire level (which would be size + 1). so if you have a city on fire and a minifig lands on a size 5 building, assume it is a size 6 fire, and do 6d4 damage to the minifig. of course, any player can demand to know exactly how on fire any one object is and calculate the fire damage being done. however, if this player does this too many times (trust me, you'll know when it's too many), skip the hammer of justice and go straight for a good old fashioned uppercut.

Rayhawk wrote:In BW2001 we used colored bricks for the fire, and the fire level was the number of different colors. If we had a lot of yellow bricks handy, for instance, then yellow was fire level one. If something was burning at fire level two, we added some red bricks in at that spot, and so forth. It worked pretty well.

really? i remember reading all this crap in the 01 rules about how specific types of fuel would only burn at fire level 7, and only with specific colors like blue and green and purple. naturally, i vomitted.